OUseful Info

Library Thing for Libraries. Oh, yes...

The Open University is unlike almost every other academic library, in the same way that the OU campus is unlike most university campuses, in that it doesn't really physically cater to students, most of whom are distance learners.

Lending rights are largely restricted to academic members of staff, both at the OU 'central office' in Milton Keynes, as well as from the regions; and Associate Lecturers, who can make postal loans of books held in the library.

Local residents and students are also allowed access, I believe, but for most students, loans from the library are limited to electronic ones (and the OU has the potential to excel - meeting electronically the information needs of over 200, 000 students).

The OUseful Library Traveller script uses the wide selection of online resources (ebooks and journals) to augment bookseller websites (such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble) with a panel than links directly through to an ebook version of the currently viewed book, where available. (Mail me if you want the latest version of the Firefox extension that delivers this service.)

Access to the OU Library OPAC (that is, the collection catalogue) is of little use to the majority of our students, although it is available to them; more useful are links to our students local academic library catalogues, a feature that's on my to do list for the Library Traveller.

Arguably, we could - maybe should - offer a single user-customisable library catalogue interface that presents a view on to the student's local academic library catalogue. Think something like the Talis Silkworm Directory service feeding an 'OU student local library catalogue' interface.

Alternatively, we could take a step back, and ask what it is we want from an academic book catalogue.

As far as I can tell (not being a librarian ;-), the OPAC does two main things, as far as the user is concerned.

Firstly, it's a custom search engine, socially constructed in part, over book and journal resources held by the library, with resources identified by academic staff and subject librarians over the past forty years.

Secondly, it tells me about the availability of a particular book held in the collection, within the OU library, or the availability of the publication online.

In minor third place, the system tells me about the current status of my loans - books I have out on loan, books I have reserved, books I'm overdue in returning.

Off the top of my head, what services would I like the catalogue to offer me as a student (assuming for the moment we are limiting this to books (err, why??????;-)):

- effective search that works for mortals - i.e. not just based on some formal classiifcation by a cataloguer professional...;
- books that are 'good hits' given my search terms/personal needs;
- reading and recommendation lists for a particular course, perhaps?
- availability of said books in a library local to me;
- availability of books I have full electronic access to - or that I can browse (e.g. via Google Books or Amazon Search Inside);
- how appropriate the book is for a particular course, maybe? Think: Amazon-like reviews by other students, or course team members;
- related books - 'students who studied this book on this course also studied...';
- other editions of this book. Think: xISBN, or similar.
- a place for me to add my own review of a book, maybe?
- negotiated discounts with vendors should I want to buy several books on a list;
- and maybe even search over OU and OpenLearn materials?

(Hmmm - it's quite interesting comparing that list with this one from a long time ago idling about My(Open)Library: OurLibrary.)

How many of these services do we currently offer to our students, I wonder? (answers from the Library website redesign team - who did an audit on the old/current site - in a comment to this post, please ;-)

Step in, Library Thing. For those of you who don't know about Library Thing, err, you should... ;-) It's a bit like your own personal library catalogue, a bit like delicious for books.

It offers user tagging, reviews and related books; personal bookshelves/collections; and social "book club" like discussion groups.

And now, it's for libraries too: Library Thing for Libraries. Like for the libraries in Danbury, Connecticut, for example.

So what does it offer? basically, an augmentation of the default library catalogue view with the following Library Thing sourced data:

# Book recommendations. Show high-quality "recommended" or "similar" books.
# Tag browsing. Give your patrons the power and flexibility of searching and browsing your books by tags.
# User reviews and ratings. Add hundreds of thousands of high-quality user reviews. Give your patrons the ability to add their own.
# FREE: Other editions and translations. Link related editions and translations of the same work.

Okay, okay - so at the moment Library Thing is fiction focussed and not necessarily tuned to academic textbook collections.

But suspend your disbelief for a moment and suppose - just suppose - we give OUr students a Library Thing, Academic account? (is such a thing as Library Thing, Academic, likely, Tim?)

And suppose further we integrate this with a customisable OU student/UK academic library catalogue interface built on top of something like Silkworm, so students can see when a relevant book is held close to them (or via the OU Library, in electronic form)...?

... as well as supporting electronic resource collections built around DOIs (that is, cataloguing DOIs, as well as ISBNs) with one-click, pre-authenticated access to online electronic subscription copies.

Our students are distributed in nature - a problem for localised thinking in terms of the provision of library catalogue services, but one that is turned into an asset by approaches such as Library Thing...or Bookcrossing.com.

We're already developing one informally titled service in the OU: MyStuff - the e-portfolio.

So how about another: Library Things?

Posted by ajh59 at May 14, 2007 08:42 PM